Chimera
by LilyWhite22
Summary: When she hiked up the mountain, she had no intention of falling down a hole, and no idea what she'd find underneath.
Looking into the yawning hole at your feet, you realize you really should have expected this. After all, there was a reason so many people had disappeared on Mt. Ebott over the years. The hole was hidden very well, too. Only a couple minutes off the main path, and hidden very well behind some bushes, if one wasn't walking slowly, and keeping an eye out for their surroundings, it would be very easy to fall into.

Personally speaking, you had stepped off of the path for a quick break and some lunch.

You had lost a bet recently with one of your friends in university, and it was either climb Mt. Ebott and camp out there for a week (they'd cover you in classes), or get notched. And frankly speaking, you were quite attached to your eyebrows, so camping on a near-deserted mountain it was.

While it was the middle of summer, you were at quite a high altitude at this point, so wearing a sweater, even while hiking, was necessary. Your little sister enjoyed knitting, so when she heard about your upcoming adventure on the mountain, she had made you a very warm, soft sweater, with large pink and blue horizontal stripes (her favorite colours).

It was one of the most comfortable things you had ever gotten, and you loved it immediately, even though the shades of pink and blue clashed horribly. But you weren't going to say anything about that, because you valued comfort and her feelings over style. And besides, in the forest, there was no one to see you wear an ugly sweater, not that it would stop you anyways.

So you smiled, and thanked her, tying the sweater around your waist and promising yourself to love and cherish the item of clothing forever.

Now that you were at a sufficient elevation, and the wind was beginning to get a bit too chilly, you tugged on the sweater, immediately relishing the warmth it provided, all the while silently grateful to Marigold for her heartfelt gift.

You mean, you could have been walking around topless, and no-one would be there to see it, but you'd probably be a _little_ cold. And besides, it was a very nice sweater, just a little eye-watering in its colouring.

Your friends and sibling dropped you off at the foot of the mountain, sending you off with hugs and offers to come with, and when that didn't work, extracting promises from you to call or text them at least once a day, so they knew you were alright and hadn't been mauled by a bear, or something.

For a few minutes after they drove off again, you stood there at the beginning of the trail leading to the mountain's base, staring up, starting to understand why there were so many intimidating myths involving it. You think there was something involving monsters, in some of the older stories that you had found while digging through the university library while researching for projects.

You took a while on the path leading to the mountain, mostly because you were admiring the pristine nature around you, and partially because sometimes you had to stop and try to find the path, as in some parts it was so overgrown, the only traces you could see were the substantial lack of shrubbery and trees. Even then, it was a combination of luck and guesswork that you only had to backtrack a couple times before reaching the actual foot of the mountain.

Climbing the mountain itself wasn't _that_ bad, but it wasn't great either. Since there was nobody to maintain the path, it was overgrown, and in some areas, completely gone, causing you to go off the main path, and try to find another way around. You probably could have made some of those jumps, thanks to your former experience with athletics, but if you buggered up and fell, there was no one there to help you for miles.

It seemed damn near impossible to scale the mountain at times, but you couldn't give up now. It wasn't just your eyebrows on the line anymore. It was your pride.

So far, you had managed to avoid snagging the sweater on any branches, as well as tripping or falling. You felt very proud of yourself for avoiding bodily harm for so long, and briefly considered packing away Marigold's sweater so it wouldn't get damaged, but the cold winds blowing past you made you reconsider that thought pretty fast.

You had started out quite early in the morning, wanting to get the majority of your climbing done before midday, because even though it was cold on the mountain face, it was still the height of summer, so you felt that you deserved to have a rest, and possibly something to eat while you were at it.

You thought about just stopping where you were on the path and having lunch, but looking up at some of the precariously balanced boulders up ahead of you, you quickly changed your mind and resolved to find somewhere nice off of the main path to eat.

As you stepped off of the path, you paused, then turned and took a roll of plastic ribbon out of your bag, before ripping off a length and tying it to a tree branch that was roughly around eye level (just in case), then continued, periodically tying plastic ribbons to branches, until you found somewhere that looked like comfy place to sit and have a rest.

Finally spotting a suitable rock, sufficiently basked in sunlight, and looking like a fairly flat surface, you started to walk towards it, but as you did, you noticed that the ground in front of it looked kind of... Funny.

Padding lightly towards it, you put your backpack beside a tree, broke a branch off and started to slide through some bushes, poking the ground as you went, stopping immediately when you realized that instead of a nice, grassy clearing in front of you, there was nothing. Literally, nothing.

There was just a deep, _deep_ hole, taking up the entire space, with your rock perched on the other side.

As you looked down into the blackness, you thought you could see a glint of yellow, right at the bottom. Leaning forward to try and see it better, you paused just as you started to take a step forwards. How stupid were you! This was how people died, doing things like that! No, you'd wait out your week, then contact someone to come and look at it, after you came back. You might have been smart enough to back off, but other people weren't.

Chuckling nervously to yourself at your idiocy, you started to tread backwards through the bushes, concentrating entirely on not fucking up while still within range of the hole, but suddenly there was a pressure at your back, stopping you from moving backwards. You turned your head, trying to see what had stopped you from retreating, but you saw nothing.

Shrugging, you attempted to turn around to try and get away from the hole before investigating what had stopping you from moving, but as you started to turn, you found you couldn't. You were stuck, at the mercy of... whatever it was, behind you, until it decided to either let you go, or push you forwards.

Suddenly, as if it had read your mind, it began to push forwards, towards the hole. You tried to dig your heels in, tried to stop whatever it was from pushing you what was doubtlessly your death, but it was relentless. It only took seconds for it to get you to the edge of the hole, though it felt like hours for you. It paused briefly at the edge, and you almost fooled yourself into thinking it would leave you alone, but after a short pause, it gave one last shove, and you were

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